The Strange One (1957)

April 13, 1957

Screen: 'The Strange One'; Ben Gazzara Stars in New Film at Astor

By BOSLEY CROWTHER

Published: April 13, 1957

THE main point of Calder Willingham's novel and play "End As a Man" has been pretty well missed in the film version, "The Strange One," which came to the Astor yesterday. That point was the fact that brutalization and corruption of young men were ironically fostered and shielded by the "code of honor" in existence at a Southern military school.

Rather we have in this picture, which Sam Spiegel has produced and Jack Garfein has directed, again from a script by Mr. Willingham, just a morbid demonstration of the way in which one cadet uses his wits and his urge for mischief-making to "get even" with another young man.

True, Mr. Garfein in his direction has engendered an atmosphere of mystery and malevolence in the barracks that is appropriate to a minor horror tale. And in the performance of Ben Gazzara as the mischief-maker, we have an unattractive image of a youthful fiend at work.

In his deliberate preparations for the undertaking of a plan to compromise an enemy by making it look as if he had got drunk, he gives a tantalizing picture of devilish cleverness and of impudence and arrogance that make the blood run cold.

Likewise, other actors give strong impressions of other cadets. Pat Hingle is genuine and amusing as a none-too-bright Southern friend of the mischief-maker; George Peppard is resolute as a first-year man who resists being made a tool of mischief; Arthur Storch is despicable as a cowardly "rat" and James Olson is briefly comic and a bit contemptible as a stupid football star.

But so much has been left out of the picture that was in the novel and the play that the social comment of Mr. Willingham's story is sadly lacking on the screen. For instance, the fact that the "strange one" was the son of a powerful man whose enmity was feared by the school authorities has been completely overlooked. So has the scene of the beating of the drunken and helpless football star.

The plot for corrupting one boy with a prostitute is sketched vaguely in a feeble scene wherein Julie Wilson ably plays a slack-jointed dame, and the suggestion of a homosexual angle, so strong in the play, is very cautiously hinted here.

Most obvious and weakening alteration, however, comes at the end. Instead of the school authorities having anything to do with the resolution of the embarrassing problem they have on their hands, the film has the mischief-maker run out of school by a sort of vigilante group, secretly mustered by the cadets. This is likened, with good reason, to an operation of the Ku Klux Klan.